how much dangerous can it be to directly turn off the computer?

Answer 1

Scrambles all the... sheesh who told you that?

When you work with a file, a handle to it is created, using this handle applications read from and write to the file. When you power off the system any file that had open handles to it will be left in the state the application had them in when you powered off. Generally this isn't that harmfull but if an application happened to be modifying a file at the time you powered off it may be corrupted as whatever the application was doing at that time is going to be interrupted. The next time you open that file the application usally responsible for working with it is going to expect the file to be in a particular format, if it was corrupted it will no longer be in a valid format and the application will generally return an error code stating such.

Now thinking on all that, think of Windows itself as one complex program, it's constantly working with all types of files, if it tries to work with something that's been corrupted, it's going to error out on whatever it was going to do, if this was a core system file then that's where the headache begins and you insert your installation cd and get ready to boot off of it and try to fix the problem.

It's best to not power off like that unless you really need to or have no other choice.

Long term effects though.... let's say you tinkered with your system and overclocked anything and everything and now you have a hot-running system, if you just power off the system you are not allowing the interior of the system to cool down properly as when you do a normal power down and the system fans still run even after the operating system has shutdown. Sooner or later you are going to burn out a component.

On a side note someone else mentioned fragmentation, this occurs normally and is not a byproduct of powering off improperly. Fragmentation is categorized as wear-and-tear and can easily be managed. Another topic for another time though. :P

Answer 2

I had a laptop and the only way i could use it was if it was charging because i had no battery. Well, my battery charger had a short in it so every time i moved my laptop it lost power and shut off. As a result of that my hard drive is now fried. I advise you not to directly turn off your computer unless you would like the hard drive to be completely ruined.

Answer 3

Temporary files get slammed around, any running program can become burnt toast, and bad burnt,not scrape that off with a butter knofe and eat it burnt.
Any temp files that are part of a running program can be toasted.
Basically a bad idea on windows, and most all OSs.
With a good and regular backup routine, slam power when you dont have the 2 minutes to wait. All your data gets lost, but it happens anyways so at least look busy.

Answer 4

This is not a good idea. All kinds of background applications are in use for Windows, and doing that does not allow Windows to put them away and tidy up properly, so they become fragmented and could become corrupt.

If you have done this, it is a good idea to run scan disk [All Programs, Accessories, System Tools] with the option to automatically fix....

Answer 5

It scrambles all the file that were in use. Puts them all over the place especially windows. That keeps it from running properly when rebooted cause some of the files can't be found.

Answer 6

i don't think it's very harmful at all. The only thing is that the files that were in use before u shut it off, will either be inactive or corrupted. Thank You. Come again.

Answer 7

Whatever files were in use (system files, applications, etc.) might become corrupt because they were not closed properly.

Answer 8

Worse thing that can happen is Windows wont start up.